The screenwriter, director and producer PAUL HAGGIS (2006 double Academy Award®-winner for the movie "Crash") is the Chairman of the 5th edition of "Ischia Global Film & Music Fest”; the festival of cinematic art and the cultural trademark of "made in Italy" - from the 10th to the 15th of July at the legendary Regina Isabella Resort & Spa in the isle of Ischia, Italy. The festival is produced by Pascal Vicedomini and the Ischia International Arts Academy, with the support of the Film Departm...

Nominations for the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for outstanding performances in 2006 in five film and eight primetime television categories were announced this morning in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater in West Hollywood.Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg introduced Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) and Elijah Wood (Bobby, Happy Feet), who announced the nominees for this year’s Actors®. Screen Actors Guild will honor its own at the 13th Ann...

AFI FEST Opens with 38-Year Journey by Eric BeteilleAFI FEST Daily News THE TIME IT TAKES TO JOURNEY between the former site of the Ambassador Hotel and the home of Grauman's Chinese Theater: About 20 minutes. The time it takes to journey between the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the premiere of a film celebrating the spirit of the man and his time: About 38 years. The cast of Emilio Estevez's BOBBY, making its US premiere as the Opening Night Gala Presentation of AFI FEST 2006 presente...

Tonight, the AFI Film Festival kicks off with the U.S. Premiere of "Bobby", written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The film, produced by Dan Grodnik, Gary Michael Walters and Sir Anthony Hopkins, includes an all star cast consisting of Harry Belafonte, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, and Elijah Wood. "Bobby" was...

BOBBY is the Opening Night Gala presentation for AFI FEST, November 1 - 12, 2006. The film's US premiere is AFI FEST Opening Night, Wednesday, November 1, 2006 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, BOBBY revisits the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968. The film's ensemble cast includes Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Brian Geraghty, Heather Graham, Antho...

With a couple of hours still left to go until the official kick-off of this "Mother of all Film Festivals" activity is feverish along the short stretch of the Lido known as Viale Marconi, the actual location of this oldest of all world film festivals --Now that was rather a mouthful, calling for a bit of elucidation. The first Venice film festival took place way back in 1932 when the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, taking a page from Lenin, realized that film was a powerful propaganda...

With the festival entering its twilight phase there is no apparent letup in surprises and flashy new films. Three big ones yesterday were Kenneth Branagh's eagerly anticipated world premiere of a new screen version of Mozart's "Magic Flute", Manoel Oliveira's homage to Bunuel's "Belle de Jour", and another bravura turn by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada". La Streep, (a magnificent 57), the last big star of the week to hit town, held forth in a most interesting press conference in which s...

Directors John Landis, Lina Wertmuller, double-Oscar winner Paul Haggis and Christian De Sica, and the extraordinary actress Naomi Watts ("21 Grams" and the film "King Kong") were among the featured cinema leaders at the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest, produced by Pascal Vicedomini and held at the Regina Isabella on the island of Ischia July 11-16. Wertmuller, Landis and Haggis were honored by the Ischia International Academy of Art (President Giancarlo Carriero). They joined at the Kimbo Cine...

“ONCE IN A LIFETIME,” A SOCCER DOCUMENTARY NARRATED BY MATT DILLON, OPENS ISCHIA GLOBAL FEST 2006 ON TUESDAY, JULY 11; FIRST OF 43 FILMS TO BE SCREENED, INCLUDING 12 PREVIEWSThe incredible history of the New York Cosmos soccer team, narrated by Matt Dillon in the documentary by Paul Crowder, will inaugurate the 4th Ischia Global Film & Music Fest on Tuesday, July 11. The Cosmos of three decades ago assembled an international array of all-stars such as Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff,...

Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) president Alan Brewer announces the completion of the most successful festival in its 36 year history, breaking a record with a 14% increase in attendance over the prior year. The third longest running festival in the U.S., with the winning feature awarded the opportunity for Academy Award consideration, NaFF ’05 kicked off its opening night with the John Singleton produced “Hustle & Flow” and the Paul Reiser/Peter Falk film “The Thing About My Folks.” ...

"U-CARMEN eKHYELITSHA" is an extremely unusual version of the opera Carmen set in a squalid shanty-town "Township", Khyelitsha, near Capetown, South Africa --and sung entirely by African singers in the "click language", Khosa! This black Carmen is a light year beyond the light brown "Carmen Jones" of 1954 which starred Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge and seemed so sucy and racy at the time. For one thing, Pauline Malefane (Carmen) is not a slender Hollywood mannekin type like Dandridge ...